Well, I have come to my final Stamp-a-Faire post for the day. It's been so much fun seeing all of your projects and chatting in the forum.

For this last challenge we asked members of the Papertrey community to submit cards that the felt just needed a little "something" or just didn't seem to be working. Each DT member chose one card to "remix'.

I selected this card by Kelly Szafron. I was drawn to it because I felt like it had a lot of potential and it also uses one of current favorite samp sets, Mini Blooms.

And here is my remix of her card. I kept her basic design and layout, just changed up a few details. Let me explain...

What I did...

Cleaned up the background: I felt like her random background was maybe a little too random and needed more structure. I took the same stamps she used and instead of spreading them out I clustered them. It's still a random background, but visually it has a little more structure... the words "random" and "structured" seem to be opposites, but in the case of stamping backgrounds I think both words apply.

Lightened the color and visual weight of the sentiment: Because the sentiment was stamped on darker cardstock and placed towards the bottom, it feels a little "heavy" in comparison to the light and airy background and vellum. Stamping it on a light color and moving it up makes it feel lighter.

Added leaves to the diecut flowers: Flowers without leaves are very circular and don't do a lot to move your eye across the card. Notice how the flowers around my sentiment have leaves...the top left leaf is pointing up to the left corner and the bottom leaf is pointing down to the right corner. This helps direct your eye.

Notched the vellum strip and rounded the bottom corners: Since I moved the sentiment up, my card was feeling a little top heavy. Notching the bottom of the vellum strip as well as rounding the bottom corners balances out the visual weight of the sentiment.

Twine instead of stitching: The twine gives a little more weight to the vellum -- grounding it and keeping it from blending into the background too much.

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Recipe Remix...

Well, I have come to my final Stamp-a-Faire post for the day. It's been so much fun seeing all of your projects and chatting in the forum.

For this last challenge we asked members of the Papertrey community to submit cards that the felt just needed a little "something" or just didn't seem to be working. Each DT member chose one card to "remix'.

I selected this card by Kelly Szafron. I was drawn to it because I felt like it had a lot of potential and it also uses one of current favorite samp sets, Mini Blooms.

And here is my remix of her card. I kept her basic design and layout, just changed up a few details. Let me explain...

What I did...

Cleaned up the background: I felt like her random background was maybe a little too random and needed more structure. I took the same stamps she used and instead of spreading them out I clustered them. It's still a random background, but visually it has a little more structure... the words "random" and "structured" seem to be opposites, but in the case of stamping backgrounds I think both words apply.

Lightened the color and visual weight of the sentiment: Because the sentiment was stamped on darker cardstock and placed towards the bottom, it feels a little "heavy" in comparison to the light and airy background and vellum. Stamping it on a light color and moving it up makes it feel lighter.

Added leaves to the diecut flowers: Flowers without leaves are very circular and don't do a lot to move your eye across the card. Notice how the flowers around my sentiment have leaves...the top left leaf is pointing up to the left corner and the bottom leaf is pointing down to the right corner. This helps direct your eye.

Notched the vellum strip and rounded the bottom corners: Since I moved the sentiment up, my card was feeling a little top heavy. Notching the bottom of the vellum strip as well as rounding the bottom corners balances out the visual weight of the sentiment.

Twine instead of stitching: The twine gives a little more weight to the vellum -- grounding it and keeping it from blending into the background too much.

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